#both of them would make incredibly uninteresting supervillains

[luthwhore]

i can understand people not being interested in seeing reformed lex and preferring stories of him being a villain (even if i don’t personally agree) but i saw someone leave a review on league of comic geeks insinuating that joshua williamson’s take on lex luthor was somehow indicative of his view on irl billionaires like musk and bezos and i really wanted to reply to the person and be like “hey serious question do you think ebeneezer scrooge reforming at the end of a christmas carol meant charles dickens was pro-billionaire”

[land-of-brains-and-chocolate]

i guess i am also going to @symbruary: it’s old news, incredibly old news, that i have a different 00s break-up for venom in mind.

my primary problem with the 00s, starting with the 2003 hunger, is that they reboot these characters only to give them Just Some Guy syndrome. like, eddie’s previous motivations were his incredibly fucked up sense of good and evil, and responsibility, and that in turn was revealed to stem from his incredibly fucked up sense of self; that was why he wanted to kill spider-man, and he wanted to be with the symbiote not only because it enabled this but also because he bonded with it as a kindred soul, fucked up in similar ways.

his primary motivation as of the 2003 hunger is, instead, not wanting to lose the symbiote to spider-man so he wouldn’t die of cancer. not wanting to die of cancer is a very uncomplicated, unspecific, uninteresting motivation. it makes eddie Just Some Guy. he and the symbiote also only ever used each other, with the symbiote having been evil and wanting spider-man the whole time. this also takes eddie’s last trait, incapable of taking responsibility, away from him, because if he really was possessed by an evil alien who made him do evil things, then he really was more or less innocent all along. he is Just Some Guy. the symbiote, meanwhile, is Just Some Parasite. and of course, none of that is compatible with what came before.

i still think an explosive break-up was inevitable. they had no reason to work on themselves when they were together, and their flaws would eventually turn against each other. as they slowly realise the harm they’ve caused, the people they’ve killed, eddie starts blaming it all on the symbiote, distorting it in his mind. the symbiote, meanwhile, reacts terribly to rejection, to being seen as a monster, namely by going, if that’s what i am, after all, then that’s what i’ll be. and eddie was the one who originally made it believe otherwise, too... since they’re right there in each other’s heads, it turns real ugly real fast. 

important points for this break-up scenario:

MILK the fucking “eddie can sense his other’s pain even when separated” thing from pots for ALL IT’S WORTH. rub it IN that eddie is ACTUALLY hurting himself, thinking of himself, projecting on the symbiote. literally how fucking tasty is it to have him try to commit suicide by proxy when hunting down the symbiote. have him REALISE it á la carnage 2016.

anti-venom. i do in fact want something like anti-venom. i also do not want eddie to sell the symbiote, not even for ethical reasons, but because i refuse to believe even he would be that unbelievably incapable of understanding consequences. what the fuck did he think would happen when he sold the symbiote to a supervillain. what was the point. what.

basically i do not know the logistics of this but: i do not want anti-venom to be born from remnants of the symbiote, but from its remains, i want the symbiote to BE ACTIVELY BURNED OUT OF HIM as he asks to be cleansed, that’s how he gets rid of it.

but the GOOD news is that, since we know that lack of self-reflection is what caused all this on both their ends, and since we know that they were enabling each other not to self-reflect, engineering their own downfall...

we know that some painful fucking time apart can come with some painful fucking realisations, and that would be exactly what allows them to explicitly, naturally develop in a way that makes them want to undo it all and try again and be better.

basically we now have four eras, it was us (and it was good) --> it was you (and it was bad) --> it was me (and it was bad) ---> it was us (and it was bad (but it can be good)).

[traincat]

Hi hi hi! I was going through SpiderMan board in cbr. They mentioned that Peter is not over Tony’s fuckery during CW. And that MJ hates Tony cuz he fired her but when did he? I can’t recall. Is there an animosity between them and Stark? Thank you!

Oh boy. Look, don’t tell the nerds, but I wouldn’t exactly call the boards at CBR an excellent source of character analysis in general. I have a long post about Tony and Peter’s interactions during and immediately after Civil War, though it’s mostly dedicated to disproving the notion that these two characters ever shared an important bond separate to that event. I also have to say, and I realize this is subjective, but unless it’s cold hard and irrefutable canon that two characters “hate” each other -- Peter and Norman Osborn, for example -- I don’t like using that terminology, because it tends to make fans who like one character over another (and there’s nothing wrong with that) pick sides, when one I’m interested in sometimes is picking aside what makes two characters in a genuinely massive canon click and what makes them not. In Peter and Tony’s case, these characters serve very different purposes, both in terms of ideology and in how their powers work. They’re both inventors, but Tony has to build or adapt everything related to Iron Man -- it’s his invention. Peter invents, but only to help Spider-Man. Even without webshooters or spider-tracers, Peter is still capable, without uniform, of lifting a truck over his head without breaking a sweat. Tony is a futurist; Peter is very much in the now, protecting a very specific area. Tony can be global in a way where, if the same purpose is applied to Peter, he loses a vital piece of his character. One of these purposes as a character is not better than the other, but they are very different, which is kind of the joy of having 80 million characters to populate your fictional universe. 

I can’t say about Mary Jane, because I was extremely loosely following her appearances in Iron Man, so if he did fire her I have not read it yet, but I do know she’s no longer working there and back to acting, because the status quo. (I wasn’t a fan of her working for Stark Industries, don’t get me wrong, and I’m glad they’re not trying to divorce MJ from the arts anymore, but y’know, comics. The Amazing Mary Jane #1 was cute but it’s also a loose rehash of JMS’s Lobster Man arc, with the twist that everyone is weirdly cool about supervillains abusing their powers now. Thanks, MCU.) I do think that it’s a byproduct of how the people writing comics are typically uninterested in exploring the non-superhero byproducts of fame in that Mary Jane was once falsely romantically linked to Tony in the tabloids and if he had hired her surely that would’ve come back up. I think given the situations Mary Jane has plenty of reasons to be wary of Tony, and that I’m not sure I could buy her working for him giving her experiences during Civil War, but I think that would be a more reasonable exploration than “she hates him because he fired her.” Mary Jane’s been blacklisted from modeling by a millionaire who kidnapped her; she has some high standards for employment-based hatred here. 

With Peter things are complicated now because there is a strong and loud vested fandom interest through the MCU for him to have a connection for Tony, but as I addressed in the above linked post -- he really doesn’t, traditionally speaking. It was always an invented dynamic to add tension to this specific plotline. Brand New Day’s deal also complicates things because, while the majority of the situation plays out the same, the Mephisto deal does alter Peter’s memories, and I think it would be fair to argue that some of his rage has been dulled because of that altered timeline. (This isn’t necessarily canon, but I do think you could argue it.) Peter has displayed animosity towards Tony since then, notably in Amazing Spider-Man (2015) #13, when he punched him. But as I’ve talked about before, “Peter displays animosity” is, when Peter is well-written, a general Peter trait. I will say he was VERY angry at Tony following Civil War, which is understandable given the circumstances:

(Sensational Spider-Man #36) But also, in situations, Peter ultimately blames himself for situations, so even if he held lingering animosity for Tony, he takes responsibility for not trusting his own judgment:

(Avengers: The Initiative #7) You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make Peter Parker stop taking responsibility. Yes, someone else can orchestrate a situation, but if at any point in time he went a long willingly with it, he’s going to blame himself at the end. So I wouldn’t say either situation is as clean cut as characters simply hating each other, especially when there is -- or should be, anyway -- a lot of lingering mistrust from the fallout of an incredibly disastrous situation. (One that I don’t think Tony even remembers first hand? If I’m up on my Iron Man osmosis.)

[thebigpapilio]

All That Glitters: Chloé Appreciation Week’s “Golden” Prompt!

Hi, everyone! As you’ve most likely picked up, I’m AspergerBloodthirst, and this is my first submission for Chloé Appreciation Week (I call it CAW)! 

The first prompt I needed to do was entitled “Golden.” After some thought, I remembered the lyric “All that glitters is gold, and only shooting stars break the mold.”

The fingers started tapping from there. This fic is Chlonette, and if you don’t like that (or Chloé, or non-hetero ships whatsoever), you don’t have to read it! 

ENJOY!!!

Chloé was 7 and three-fourths years old when she first saw Shrek 1. She had known Adrien for 3-4 years at this point, but the two of them had just been best friends to her at that point. She had been generally uninterested in the movie, to be honest - she was younger and not vain (just spoiled), and these factors led to her not truly understanding why anyone would give up their title and looks for love. But Adrien seemed to love it, and that made her happy. It was that day when she realized she’d fallen for him.

She rewatched Shrek 1 a few days later (she also bought the rest of the movies and was preparing for the soon-to-be-released Shrek 4) so she’d be able to hold conversation with him about it.

She had been planning to surprise him on his next birthday, but it was not to be; Emilie passed away a few days before, so Adrien’s birthday was spent mourning Emilie.

Chloé was 9 and one-half years old when she first met Sabrina. Sabrina and her were only friends then, though Chloé would look back as an adult and occasionally cry about it; Marinette always knew how to comfort her. Things got hairy one time when she heard Sabrina jamming out to All Star and started a fight, but they fixed things quickly. The fact that Sabrina gave up what she liked for Chloé would “earn” her the grand title of Best Friend.

Chloé was 14 and one fourth years old when Ladybug and Chat Noir appeared on the scene. The Bourgeois heiress was in awe of the spotted superheroine, dodging Stoneheart’s attacks like she’d been training exactly for Ivan becoming a weird rock monster her whole life.

Oh, and Chat Noir was good too, she supposed.

She didn’t know it at the time, but she fell in love with Ladybug too. She was in love with Adrien, she thought to herself if her mind ever brought it up.

All that glittered seemed to be gold, and life seemed to be a cool place. Of course, it only got colder.

Chloé was 16 and five-sixths years old, and also in danger of being sent to an orphanage or something like that when she realized her mistakes; at last she figured out that she’d been a massive brat and dangerous to her beloved city. André had finally been busted; he was arrested for robbing folks’ bank accounts blind (among other things), and while Chloé was declared innocent of everything but leading near half of the akumatized victims to the trauma being supervillains gave them, she felt incredibly bad (it wasn’t just because she had nowhere to go). She could have done something if she’d known; the depressive thoughts opened her mind to the truth of her actions. She would have nowhere to go, and so she decided to fix her behavior.

She started with Sabrina, and then the rest of her classmates and teachers followed suit. Not all of them were trusting, but few if any of those people didn’t even give her a chance. Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien were the last ones - she’d forgotten about both of them somehow. She and Dupain-Cheng (stop referring to her as that, she noted to herself) had found a very uneasy truce when Adrien started dating them. She got over that very quickly - as it turned out, they decided to call it off rather quickly, yet they stayed great friends. They probably stopped because of Gabriel saying no, she snarked to herself. One sincere apology to both of them later in which she achieved both of their forgiveness (we’ve been waiting to hear it for far too long, the two said), B.C. had finally reached closure (it stood for Bratty Chloé, and it was the nickname for the past version of herself - it was also a clever quip that made Adrien proud of her).

They celebrated by watching the all 4 Shrek movies - something Chloé had wanted to do for a very long time.

Chloé was 21 and one-sixth years old when she started dating Marinette. The formed rivals had bonded over Adrien, fashion, and other things post-graduation; Tom and Sabine had legally adopted Chloé, given the fact she had nowhere else to go but the foster care system; henceforth, the two former contenders for Adrien’s affections seeing each other and eventually falling in love. After their first date of staying home and watching all the Shrek movies without inviting Adrien (they felt bad later and confessed to him. He forgave them, of course), they started saving for university. Chloé got into an impressive business school, while Marinette made the fashion school of her dreams. While they were in a long-distance relationship, the two did their best to make sure they chatted at least once a week. In fact, Chloé was planning to propose to her when they got back to each other.

When the day came, it turned out that Marinette had a giant (albeit superheroine-themed) surprise for her too. Of course, both agreed to keep these new revelations secret for as long as they needed to. Needless to say, everyone had been very pleased.

It was one month after Chloé’s 26th birthday that she married Ladybug. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe Paris’ savior (and former love rival when a civilian) wanted her for a bride. It was a grand affair - Gabriel (who had lightened up after beginning his relationship with Nathalie, who also helped him to see the immense pain he’d left his own son with) had helped a lot, even agreeing to not only make a dress for the both her and Marinette, (who was his new star designer and possible heir), but he’d walk the blonde down the aisle to her raven-haired bride too (did you really think André was able at the moment?). After all, the Bourgeois and Agreste families were close; not to mention that (alongside Ms. Bustier and their entire class), Chloé & Marinette had made sure that Adrien had a lot of people in his corner when his own father had not been. Heck, even Hawkmoth ended up being merciful during the time of the wedding - he hadn’t made akumas since a few days before their announcement, and it was coming close to a year without akumas. Marinette and Adrien, still amazingly close friends (Chloé had figured out Adrien was Chat Noir before the duo’s first anniversary, so she was surprised she hadn’t figured out Marinette sooner) were half-joking and half-seriously worried that Hawkmoth had figured out Marinette’s identity and was going to swarm the place any second, maybe take Chloé hostage. Chloé’s new hair comb, however, would have perplexed the purple perpetrator, most likely allowing the now-quartet of heroes to finally take him down.

But things never end the way we expect them to, do they?

Chloé was 29 years old when Hawkmoth finally yielded. His moth-made head told the crowd of Parisians led by Mayor Raincomprix (Chloé was still incredibly proud of Sabrina for that) he was giving this speech and then handing over his Miraculous to his two enemies. He did not state why he was going to do this, nor did he explain how he could do this, but in the end, he’d profoundly and professionally apologized for the horrors he had unleashed upon Paris, swept up his un-evilized moths and packed up shop. That was the last the public saw of Hawkmoth for a long time.

Chloé, Adrien, and Marinette were incredibly sure knew it was Gabriel after that, so after transforming, they stormed the mansion with Rena, cornered the fashion mogul, got the details. Ultimately, he was forgiven, so long as he didn’t try anything else (then again, he was not able to - he renounced the Peacock and Moth Miraculi). She’d been Queen Bee for less then two years, and now it ended. She was fine about it, though - she and Rena Rouge only showed up sometimes anyway. The reveal between the four was not particularly interesting to Chloé - she knew all of them except for Rena. Marinette had willingly told her on their engagement day, and Adrien was Chloé Bourgeois-Dupain-Cheng’s best friend! It made sense that Alya was Rena Rouge, Chloé would laugh while reflecting upon her time before and with the hair comb. One trip to Master Fu later, and all Miraculi were safe and where they needed to be when unnecessary. Chloé would miss Pollen, that said, but she hadn’t known her for long enough to have the bond with the bee kwami that Marinette and Adrien had with… Tinky and Lagg, was it? It wasn’t important now - that was the last the public would hear of Ladybug, Chat Noir, Queen Bee and Rena Rouge (really, Miraculous things in general) for a long time.

Chloé was a girl who’d had the best and worst the world had to offer. While it was true that the years had not stopped coming, Chloé just had to remember her loved ones, and then she would be a Believer of their opinion: She was an All Star, and this was the way she liked it (and she never got bored).

[briangroth27]

Incredibles 2 Review

I absolutely loved Incredibles 2! It's a great time at the movies and definitely worth the 14-year wait. I was initially skeptical of it picking up seconds after the original, but I think the story threads here—particularly Jack-Jack's (Eli Fucile, Nick Bird) development and the Anti-Super laws—needed to be dealt with onscreen rather than off.  I liked that they reversed the structure of the first movie and had Helen (Holly Hunter) go off on the adventures while Bob (Craig T. Nelson) stayed at home to watch the kids. Even better, this switch was rooted in statistical facts that Elastigirl was the most effective and efficient hero between herself, Bob, and Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson). Since so much of her Elastigirl persona was left in the past in the original movie because she’d moved on in life while Bob hadn’t really, showing Helen truly loving her work and being great at it was a perfect moment that let us see a whole new side to her. Seeing Helen so overjoyed at getting to be a hero again—and being great at it, with no collateral casualties—was excellent! It was also nice to see that she had detective skills; a good contrast to Bob smashing his way through problems (and which have probably have helped her deduce what her kids are up to over the years!). That her heroic competence was truly valued outside her family circle and by the people who wanted to use her to push their politics Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener) was a genuine and welcome surprise; I'd love to see more female heroes respected and revered the way Elastigirl is here. Bob playing Mr. Mom was a lot of fun, even if I’m more than ready for a competent parenting duo instead of the always-effective mom and the cliché overwhelmed dad. That said, Bob’s battle with Dash's (Huck Milner) new math, Violet's (Sarah Vowell) teenage angst, and Jack-Jack's terrible toddling was extremely relatable and a great change from the superhero midlife crisis we saw in the original. I enjoyed Bob’s playful ego about being the better hero in his marriage and loved that it was balanced by genuinely caring that Helen had the space to do what she needed to do. That sort of loving/selfish balance is an extremely difficult line to walk but the writing and acting totally pull it off without making him unlikable (and it's not even hinted or implied that Helen is in any way selfish either). It was especially sweet of Bob not to tell Helen what was going on with the family not because he didn't want to come off as incompetent, but because he knew she'd stop her mission. Yes, he benefits from her completing it, but I fully believe that he also wants the better future for his kids that Helen can secure. I would've liked to see more of Dash and Violet in general, and particularly their school lives. Dash has homework trouble and Tony (Michael Bird), the boy Violet made a date with, forgets her (a cool example of superhero lives wreaking havoc on civilian ones as well as the law affecting the Parrs in an unexpected way), but the Anti-Super laws would've been stronger if we'd seen the kids’ lack of choice Bob talks about. Violet wanting to be normal and Dash being "defined as a person" by heroism does play out that choice, but we don't really get to see consequences of the laws in terms of impacts on the kids. Does having to come in second place in track rankle Dash? And if he's defined by being a hero, how does he feel about having to hide at school?  Is anyone suspicious of his speed? Does Dash have to fight to control himself when confronted by bullies that openly hate Supers? By teachers who preach that Supers are bad and should be illegal? Playing up the questionable aspects of the first movie's ending—is he cheating by using his speed, even for second place? How is not living up to his potential affecting his development?—would've built up a lot more pressure on the need to make Supers legal again. Violet hating being a Super made her a good proponent for not being legalized, though I would’ve liked more of that as well. How much of her tragic love life is really angst about not being able to be herself? Maybe she could’ve gotten involved with a student organization to keep Supers illegal, pitting her against her mom’s efforts. What if she discovered another Super kid at school and was forced to choose between outing them or letting them stay hidden? Might she find that pretending to be normal at school is simply boring or stifling her in ways she doesn’t want to admit? That said, I loved what we did get from Dash and Violet and absolutely dug Jack-Jack's awakening powers! The idea that Super babies often have multiple abilities is a very cool metaphor for kids having unlimited potential and it also made for a lot of fun, varied action scenes. His battle with a raccoon was highly entertaining and his unexpected bond with Edna Mode (Brad Bird) was a brilliant twist! Edna discovering a role as a loving aunt was as hilarious as it was heartwarming and a great way to reveal a new dimension of her character. Frozone is always a welcome addition and it was great to see more of him here, both as a "rebel" with Bob and Helen trying to get the Anti-Super law reversed, as a protective uncle to the Parr kids, and finally a hypnotized enemy. I’d like to finally meet his wife Honey (Kimberly Adair Clark) though. It's beyond time she was more than just a nagging influence taking the joy out of his superheroics (though I like that she knows her worth!). I really hope she’s also a retired Super so we can see what the two of them are like outside of their home. Or, it would’ve been easy to make her a Lois Lane-type figure, so she could cover Helen’s return to prominence and at least get a moment of bonding with her. Either of those options would be great and I’d like to see their relationship explored somewhere. I knew who Screenslaver (Bill Wise) was almost immediately, but that didn’t lessen my love for this character at all. The hypnotism was a spooky and old-fashioned angle that felt totally fresh and fit the retro-futurist world of The Incredibles perfectly! Screenslaver also managed to comment on modern concerns about social media obsession, which was a nice bit of relatability (just like Bob and Dash's struggle with new math) while remaining rooted in the films’ era, when TVs were the hip new thing everyone was obsessed with. Screenslaver was a creepy, cool villain who topped Syndrome for me. I just wish his argument—that people were getting lazy and becoming too dependent on Supers—was more explored with examples of people being "less" because of superheroes (beyond hearing about a death caused by waiting on one). Maybe Screenslaver should’ve been saved for a movie set after the law against Supers was lifted, but slightly clearer examples of his point here would’ve worked just as well. I feel like his argument would be stronger if we got to see Supers making things too easy or if more people were put in peril because they waited for Supers to fix their problems instead of the big argument against heroes being the collateral damage their fights cause. That said, I absolutely loved this villain and would definitely be down for a Screenslaver return! Underminer (John Ratzenberger) was also a cool, second-tier villain that felt like a classic comic book bad guy. He's clearly patterned off of Mole Man, but that didn't matter to me; it was kinda refreshing (and appropriately old-school, given these movies’ time period) to see a villain who just wanted to rob banks. He also provided a good way to reintroduce the family's heroic dynamic and to showcase Bob and Helen's different fighting styles while complicating their lives further, building off the end of the first movie brilliantly. I liked that it became a strike against the heroes that he was forgotten in the scramble to stop his drills and that he actually got away. The new Supers that were introduced didn't make the biggest impression, but I preferred this to more focus on a bunch of random new people who would take screentime from the Parrs. I did like Voyd (Sophia Bush) a lot; her fangirl attitude toward Elastigirl was fun and she was a nice answer to Syndrome's toxic fandom. I hope she returns in a sequel! Krushauer (Phil LaMarr) was a solid threat and got some good and funny lines in, while Screech playing up his full animalistic nature was creepy and something I hope Daredevil does with Owl Jr. These wannabe Supers did bring a variety of challenges to the final battle, so as secondary adversaries go, they worked perfectly. All the fight scenes contained very clever uses of everyone’s powers and were choreographed with an insane amount of fun and imagination! The numerous powers on display also made for battles that were never uninteresting. Even Bob's Incredibile got a nice showcase here as a display of the retro tech in this universe. I love the design of this world in general, but classic spy and superhero aesthetics like that are my favorite parts; I wish more superhero franchises would embrace stylized elements like this to carve out their own identities. Speaking of classic aesthetics, I loved that Bob, Helen, and Lucius had their own old-timey superhero theme songs! Michael Giacchino’s music was great as always, but those themes were great surprises! Brad Bird's direction was crisp and the writing emotionally resonate, bringing the heart of the first movie back at full force.  I can't wait to see what comes next from this world! I hope we don't have to wait another 14 years for Incredibles 3 (and I didn't need the apology/”trust us the wait was worth it” video that played at the beginning of this one; it only made us wait longer!), but I definitely want to see more adventures in this universe. Now that Supers are allowed again, I’d love for the next movie to introduce Dash and Violet's trouble-making cousins as wannabe supervillain bad influences. Cousins would bring aunts and uncles who have differing parenting styles from Bob and Helen, as well as Bob and Helen’s in-laws, who have their own opinions on how to “correctly” be heroes as well as parents. I'm thinking Christmas Vacation with superheroes, but whatever the next film is, I'll be in line to see it! While we wait, you should see Incredibles 2! It's among Pixar's best and definitely worth seeing on the big screen!

Check out more of my reviews, opinions, and original short stories here!